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Wow I just came back to leave a post and I see I'll have to scroll back and start trying to catch up when I'm done posting. I have a copy/paste just below this introductory. (Is that a word?)
I was thinking of making a focus thread about towing where by If someone wanders off thread I would just copy only the posts that stay on topic and post them on a new "Towing focus thread #2" (and then #3, and #4 etc.)
Maybe I would call it Bill's Towing Focus Group. What do you think everyone?
NOW HERE IS MY POST. NOW I HAVE TO GO BACK AND CATCH UP.>>>>>>>>>>
Bob,
I see that I was not clear enough or didn’t go into great enough detail with my posted reply to your reply: Post by bobk » Fri Aug 19, 2011 9:15 pm.
I wasn’t articulate enough to keep Tad on the same page with me on several points but I’ll go back to where I lost hold of Tad in the event that I lost you as well.
“Bill C.---
When I say, "CLEAR!" the driver activates my nose release...
“Tad ---
...you're giving control of what is at that stage the most critical element of your control system to your copilot who's busy piloting another quite different vehicle.
Bill C’s response and now quoting a post earlier in this thread-----
“Bill C.---
“When I say, “CLEAR!” The driver activates my nose release while I hold myself forward and also hold onto the hand holds keeping myself firmly in the launching yokes. When I see the nose has been released I rock myself back and let my fingers be stripped from the hand holds.”
Starting over ---
The platform truck driver (or observer when present) activates my nose release when I say, “Clear!” The driver is assisting me to get aloft with me being the pilot in command.
Starting over again---
Just like the driver assists me when I radio, “If I’m on constant transmit close your door.--I see the door. -- The nose is hot. -- Bar safeties are off. --Go to cruise.”
Before the driver goes to cruise to attain launching speed. I must say all of those sentences one after the other before he moves the truck.
If I only say, “Go to cruise,” he is to stop get out and spank me on the bare butt with a WET wooden spoon. (Remember that threat as a kid Bob?)
Starting over again---
The driver assists me by going to my cruise/launch speed marked on the Hall wind meter.
My driver further assists me by blowing the horn when he sees that I am at my launching speed. I now know that he knows and has confirmed what I can also see that we have arrived at launching speed and that the driver and I are on the same page at this stage of the towing operation.
When I say, “Clear! Clear! Clear!” The driver activates the nose release.
He does not launch me.
I’m still on the platform.
When I see that I am released I then rock back and launch myself or if I so choose I stay on the platform. (I said this last half of the sentence for effect it’s not what I do.)
I like to actually jump up off of the platform (With my feet! A real jump.) I do this so that the driver can feel and knows for sure exactly when the weight has come off of the back of the truck. He might be watching the road like he should be and hopefully not be watching me in the rear view mirror and wondering when he should start worrying about me. With the jump start there is no reason to look in the rear view mirror to see if I‘ve left or not. The driver can feel and know when I leave.
I in no way feel that I have giving control of what is at that stage the most critical element of my control system to my copilot who's busy piloting another quite different vehicle because after he blows the horn he can activate the release, when I command, which doesn’t launch me. I usually launch two to three seconds later.
I have my driver assist me through several stages of my launch sequence up to and beyond when I launch myself.
At lift off I keep a steady verbal radio transmission going to assure the driver that everything is okay and give speed corrections. As I gain altitude I only allow 3 seconds between words since I have instructed my driver to take his foot off of the gas and look back if I don’t talk for any period longer than that.
If I can’t be understood ---slow and look back.
If someone else transmits over my transmission---slow and look back.
If I go completely off transmit ---slow and look back.
Almost without exception a pilot will stop talking when he’s in trouble while towing.
( A short digression to elucidate this point.)---
I once gave Dan “Flare” O’Hara” a running static launch near the town of McGregor, MN. As he lifted off, the right leg/butt strap was draped across his right vas deferens pinching it against his anterior pubic bone. Dan was not talking or was doing so in an octave beyond my hearing range. I came to a slow stop and he landed. He was still on constant transmit but for awhile he uttered nothing. Finally Flare said, “Thank you! Thank you Bill for stopping….” and he went on to tell be what his problem had been using some colorful adjectives that would have made Tad blush!
“Oh S--T!” ---That too means trouble almost without exception.
I tell the driver as he approaches a cross runway if he is clear to cross.
The best way to keep the driver from interrupting the pilot in command is for the pilot to be on constant transmit while towing. If the truck must stop for any reason do so.
At the start of a lock out you never want to find yourself in a situation where your driver just keyed up to say, “Hey Bob k, there is a kettle of hawks thermaling up about ---oh, --- I’d say---- about ---a thousand feet to maybe a thousand five hundred feet above and to the northwest of you but just this side of the hangars. Hangar number two to be exact. Do copy Bob? Over!”
You should always use a coil cord between the radio and your truck’s microphone so that you’ll always have enough cord on hand should you find the need to fabricate a garrote.
Sure the observer should be able to see the lock out but just as with other forms of towing (aero-towing) once you get a lot of towing under your belt there will be just the tug pilot/ truck driver and the pilot. I’m referring to real world situations. Not how it should be. Not what is the safest. Safer would be standing outside the pilot’s lounge videoing the tow operation. (Hopefully.)
More tasks are expected from the driver such as clearing our entrance to a taxi way, crossing intersecting runways or announcing our entry to a runway for take off. All this by means of an aircraft radio.
It is not my intension to write my towing procedure in Encyclopedia format for this post so no one should assume that I have forgotten an important aspect of platform towing. My post is too long already but I am amazed that I haven’t the ability to keep other people on the same page with myself when I put something down in print. For that I apologize.
“Tad ---
1. So can I put you down as agreeing that Item 2:
Bill C.---Yes!
